Myth and History in Ancient Greece. The Symbolic Creation of a Colony

99 Pages·2003·48.01 MB·English

by  Claude Calame

MYTH AND HISTORY IN
ANCIENT GREECE
THE SYMBOLIC CREATION
OF A COLONY
Claude Calame
Translated by Daniel W. Berman
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON AND OXFORD
Conten~-----------------
First published in France under the tide Mythe et histoire dans l'Antiquite grecque: La
creation symbolique d'une colonie © Editions Payot Lausanne, Nadir s.a., 1996
English translation © 2003 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, PREFACE Vll
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 3 Market Place, INTRODUCTION TO THE ENGLISH EDITION BY DANIEL W. BERMAN xt
Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 lSY
All Rights Reserved I. Illusions of Mythology 1
1. The Substance of Myth and Mythology 3
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Calame, Claude. 1. 1. Common Sense and Scientific Effort 3
[Mythe et histoire dans l'antiquite grecque. English] 1.2. Myth as a Mode of Thought 4
Myth and history in ancient Greece : the symbolic creation of a colony / Claude Calame; 1.3. Double Mythology 7
translated by Daniel W. Berman.
2. Contrasts and Comparisons 8
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index. 2.1. Folktale, Legend, Myth 8
ISBN 0-691-11458-7 (alk. paper)
2.2. Indigenous Taxonomies 10
1. Mythology, Greek. 2. Cyrene (Extinct City) I. Tide.
3. Greek Nomenclature? 12
BL783 .C3513 2003
292.1 '3 - dc21 2002030257 3.1. The "Myth" of the Philosophers 12
3.2. Historiographical Narratives 15
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available 3.3. From History to Allegory 18
This book has been composed in Sabon 3.4. Rewriting the Past 19
3.5. Archaeologies 22
Printed on acid-free paper. oo
4. The Production of Symbolic Discourse 27
www.pupress.princeton.edu
4.1. Symbolic Manifestations 28
Printed in the United States of America
4.2. Semionarrative Readings 30
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 4.3. Symbolic Enunciations 33
II. The Foundation Narrative of Cyrene 35
1. Pindar and the Time of Performance 3 7
1.1. Performative Self-Reference and Temporal Location 37
1.2. Forms of Historiography 40
1.3. Narrative and Figurative Temporality 42
2. Pythian 4: The Birth of a Land 43
2.1. Semionarrative Structures and Narrative Time 43
2.2. Ariadne's Thread in a Labyrinthine Narration 48
2.3. Enunciative and Semantic Echoes 52
2.4. The Meanderings of a Cosmogonic Journey 55
2.5. From Actors to Struggles with Deviance 59
2.6. Apollonius of Rhodes: Narrative Rectifications 61
2.7. The Triad of Founding Gods 63
2.8. Metaphorical Resonances of the Ode 65
CONTENTS
Vl
Preface ________________
3. Pythian 9: A Pastoral Civilization 67
3.1. A Biography between Hunting and Husbandry 68
3.2. Matrimonial Variations on Civilization 70
3.3. Ca/limachus: Hellenistic Variants 75
THE practical study in method presented here, an exploration of one of
3.4. The Mediators of Civilizing Activity 78
the countless narrative and fictional constellations of the Greeks, is born
4. Pythian 5: Calling All Heroes! 79 of a feeling of malaise.
4.1. Actors and the Heroic Age 79 Malaise aroused first by the inadequacy of many of the categories
4.2. Foundation and the Process of Heroization 83 sustaining the modern field of cultural and social anthropology: of the
5. Herodotus and the Chronology of History 86 "mask" reduced to an object for the museum; of the "Other" opposed
to the "Self" by means of the reductive schematics of binary interaction;
5. 1. Convergent Genealogical Lines 87
of "ritual" detached from the phenomenon of symbolic speculation;
5.2. Two Foundational Plots 88
and-the interest of this study-of "myth" considered as a universal
5.3. The Establishment of Political Time 93
category of "savage thought." The impression of confusion is accentu
5 .4. The Metaphorical Figures of Political Activity 96
ated when the anthropologist takes ancient Greek culture as his terrain,
S.S. The Role of Divinity: Myth or History? 99
because in addition to spatial distance, there is the additional problem
5.6. Narrative and Oracular Logic 103
of exoticism brought about by the passage of time.
5.7. A Double Memorial 106
Malaise, as well, concerning the epistemological colorlessness
6. Callirnachus and Apollonius: A Return to Poetry 108 brought about by the infiltration of a neoliberal ideology into the hu
6.1. Callimachean Enunciative Games 109 manities. The polish of appearances and superficiality supports claims
6.2. Narratives in the Service of Poetics 111 made for the sake of competition and immediate profit. To the omnipre
sence of thought marked only by the slogan "may the best man win" (in
m. Neither Myth nor History 114
the masculine ... ), must be opposed, even in the quite reserved fields
1. Strabo's Horner 115 of the humanities, a resistance based upon a reflective and critical ascet
2. Plato and Fiction 116 icism. This function will be assigned here to traditional scholarship, al
though its pedantry may be an object for reproach, and also to the
NOTES 121 semionarrative approach, the technical character of which may be con
sidered disagreeable. The first has, nonetheless, the advantage of incor
165
BIBLIOGRAPHY
porating the research of those who have passed over this terrain before;
INDEX 173 as for the second, it should, at least, guarantee the respect due to a
certain methodological coherence.
We should not, however, impose schemas constructed in a structural
ist mode on a culture that appears to us in texts that are often of a
poetic nature. This is to say that we must take into account the produc
tion and the function of these symbolic manifestations within their his
torical, social, and ideological contexts. It is also to say that, in order to
avoid the dogmatic ponderousness of strict structural semiotics, we
should abandon the principle of immanence which closes the text on
itself independently of the situation of its production; we should re
cover, in the manifestations of the symbolic process, the practical cate
gories that are particular to them. We shall thus be interested in the
dynamism of discourse production, with its capacity to construct a fie-
PREFACE PREFACE IX
Vlll
tional world based on a reference to an ecological and cultural given, under various titles; in the United States at Bryn Mawr College (R. Ham
and with its power to act, in return, upon this reality, in a precise histor ilton), Harvard (G. Nagy), Princeton (F. I. Zeitlin), Yale (H. von Staden),
and Columbia (S. Said); at various universities and institutions in Italy,
ical context.
Particularly in the domain of the creation and writing of history, a including Cagliari (V. Citti), Cosenza (A. Gostoli), Macerata (I. Chi
rassi), Perugia (M. Rossi Cittadini), Pisa (G. Nenci), and Venice (C.
discursive and enunciative perspective is able to demonstrate how dis
Brillante); also in France at the universities of Besan~on (P. Leveque),
course production, through processes that are far from being uniquely
narrative, reformulates events considered to be foundational in order to Grenoble II (M.-L. Desclos), and Lille III (J. Boulogne), in Germany at
the University of Konstanz (W. Rosier), and in Switzerland at the Uni
restore to the community practices of ideological and pragmatic bear
ing. These re-creations (often speculative) of spaces, narrative refor versity of Geneva (P. Borgeaud), and at the Cantonal Library of Lugano
mulations of chronologies, and reasoned configurations of actions cre (G. Reggi). The different studies of which this work is composed bene
ate active representations within the culture from which they stem. In fited from the comments of many in attendance at these talks; I am only
order to be accepted within the community of belief in which the sym able here to cite the names of my hosts. I express my gratitude collec
bolic manifestation is to be inserted, the fictional is combined with the tively to all these friends, along with students in courses drawn from the
plausible. Moreover, the culture concerned will see these symbolic par material of this study, who have offered suggestions and comments.3
The manuscript benefited in its final stages from a sabbatical leave of
ticularities vary with the historical changes that animate it, according to
its own historicity. We, as modern readers, can only take note, admiring a semester that the University of Lausanne grants professors after eight
years of service, which I extended at my own expense for a second
the constant creativity of this crafting of meaning, of this constant move
semester. Its publication has been aided by the financial support of the
ment and resemanticization of symbolic productions as they vary with
Commission des Publications of the University of Lausanne, whose gen
the cultural transformations of the society in question.
erosity and efficacy have proven invaluable; for the composition of the
From this perspective, the narratives of the foundation of Cyrene, the
index I have benefited from the collaboration of Pierre Voelke. I have
great Greek colony in Libya, are exemplary. The historical event of the
discovered in Jacques Scherrer, director of Editions Payot Lausanne, an
colony's foundation undergoes the most varied transformations in the
mouths and by the pens of historiographers and poets. Shaped by narra attentive and comprehensive interlocutor, in contrast with the Parisian
tive structures, enriched by different types of metaphors, modalized by editors, who so often claim that there is no longer a "market" for
enunciative processes, and expressed in the most diverse discursive and studies in the humanities. Elaborated by Daniel Berman at Yale Univer
literary genres, these symbolic constructions are filled out with multiple sity, with whom it has been a constant and rewarding pleasure to col
textual and extradiscursive functions. In addition, their study reveals laborate, the present American translation has been made possible by a
the inadequacy of the anthropological category of "myth": we should subsidy from the Fondation du 450e Anniversaire at the University of
always prefer indigenous notions to taxonomies with universal preten Lausanne, and through a new grant by the Commission des Publica
sions. Thus the study presented here is a diptych, an attempt at critical tions of the same university.
anthropology of ancient Greek culture. 1 I was about to send the French manuscript to the editor when there
This double essay was not conceived through a solitary confrontation came to my desk the remarkable commentary on the Pythian Odes of
with the texts. The reflections in the introductory section were incorpo Pindar produced by a group of scholars of the Instituto de Filologia
rated into one of the interdisciplinary seminars entitled "Anthropologie Classica at Urbino, edited by Bruno Gentili.4 It was unfortunately too
late to take this work into account for the original edition of the present
des cultures, anthropologie des discours," held at the University of
study, in which the three Pythian odes dedicated to the celebration of
Lausanne for the past ten years despite lack of institutional recognition.
Cyrene by the Theban poet occupy a central place. A brief look none
Concerning the category of myth and its use in the field of anthropol
theless reassured me of the numerous convergences between this work
ogy, my discussions with M. Kilani and P.-Y. Jacopin were lively and
of commentary and my own ideas, no doubt brought about by the influ
profitable. These were extended in correspondences with F. Affergan
ence of the group in Urbino. Now the tireless organizer of this commen
(College de Philosophie, Paris) and R. Pottier (University of Lille I),
tary on Pindar's Pythian Odes should find here the expression of my
before taking a provisional written form in an exchange with M. Co
quet, P. Ellinger, and F. Lissarrague (Centre Louis Gernet, Paris).2 In gratitude, and I have taken advantage of the present American transla
tion not only to point out explicitly these convergences but also to
addition, many parts of this study were presented on different occasions
PREFACE
X
Introduction to the English Edition ______
update the French original at many points in other ways. These im
provements were made possible not lastly through the accurate reading
of the anonymous reader of the Press, whom I would like to thank for a
DANIEL W. BERMAN
very useful evaluation. Thus the present book can be considered a sec
ond, updated, and enlarged edition of Mythe et histoire.
c.c.
THE French version of this book, Mythe et histoire dans l'Antiquite
grecque, first appeared in 1996. At that time, several of Claude Cal
ame's works had already been translated into English, most recently
The Craft of Poetic Speech in Ancient Greece (1995). That book, a
translation of Le recit en Grece ancienne: Enonciations et representa
tions de poetes (1986, 2nd ed. 2000), has become almost required read
ing for scholars and students of the Greek narrative tradition. It is a
collection of essays, treating a broad range of genres and periods of
Greek material, connected by the author's signature theoretical model,
the "semionarrative approach." While it may be the most recognized of
his works on this side of the Atlantic, Calame's studies had been known
many years previous by specialists interested in Greek lyric poetry; a
version of his doctoral thesis, Les chreurs de jeunes fil/es en Grece ar
chai'que in two volumes (1977, 2nd ed. in Engl. trans. 1997, rev. 2001),1
and his magisterial text and commentary on the surviving fragments of
Aleman (1983) established his position as an authority on Greek melic
poetry and the cultural contexts surrounding its composition and per
formance. In these works, he was already beginning to apply the theo
retical approach for which he is now known. In the years following the
original publication of Le recit, especially in those leading up to the
emergence of the French version of the present work, Calame has fo
cused more and more on the importance of adherence to a theoretical
model capable of avoiding the interpretative pitfalls that come with ob
serving the mechanisms at work in the production and consumption of
narratives in ancient Greece, a culture so removed from ourselves in
time and even space. But from the beginning his work has shown a keen
and balanced awareness of the benefits and dangers of a rigorously the
oretical approach. Whereas Craft can be seen as a collection of discrete
studies based on a theoretical model, Myth and History is, in effect, a
single in-depth examination of a set of narratives describing the same
event, spanning genres, geographies, and chronologies. It is, more than
any of Calame's other works to date, a thorough and exacting example
of theory in practice.
It will be a useful point of departure, especially for those readers
unfamiliar with Calame's many studies, to place the present volume in
xii INTRODUCTION TO THE ENGLISH EDITION INTRODUCTION TO THE ENGLISH EDITION xiii
the context of his other works (they are numerous, and not all will be as a means of bringing what scientific or empirical objectivism might be
mentioned here). His first studies, as mentioned above, were primarily possible to bear on a subject that by its nature eschews such objectiv
concerned with archaic Greek poetry, most specifically choral lyric. ism. The material's inherent subjectivity, of course, is readily admitted.
Chreurs appeared in 1977, and the edition of Aleman in 1983. This was But the theoretical model offers a common ground from which to begin
followed by Le recit in 1986 and the magisterial Thesee et l'imaginaire an examination of the narratives in question, and a common point of
athenien: Ugende et culte en Grece antique in 1990 (2nd ed. 1996). reference from which to observe the different ways narratives affect and
Thesee marks a departure of sorts for Calame, since it treats a body of are affected by their cultural and physical environments.
material organized according to a thematic principle. A more thorough The complex relationship of a given narrative to its historical and
survey of the traditional Greek narratives concerning Theseus is not to cultural environment - broadly including aspects of performance, com
be found, but the work accomplishes more than just this. In a sweeping position, and reception, along with details of political and social milieu
first chapter, Calame elucidates the bases for his "semionarrative" ap and even ecological and geographical setting-is at the heart of Cal
proach, his method for understanding what he terms the "symbolic pro ame's approach. A narrative, by nature, bears the distinct marks of the
cess."2 The chapter is a landmark, for it expresses with a new clarity culture (understood as a set of symbolic practices and representations in
and authority both Calame's anthropological perspective and the theo use at a certain time, in a certain place) in which it is created. In addi
retical model he has developed to approach Greek narrative material, in tion, a traditional narrative itself becomes an instrument for change
the case of Thesee material that includes literary, ritual, and visual man within its cultural context. This change, Calame's "pragmatic effect,"
ifestations of the symbolic process. It serves, as well, as a clear model can manifest itself as a development or shift in interpretation of a "his
for the first chapter of the present volume, which also consists primarily torical" event5 or even as a physical change to the traditional space of a
of methodological exposition, in this case specifically pertaining to "dis given community. However this pragmatic effect is expressed, it is an
course production" in a primarily literary mode. integral feature of the narratives Calame examines, and indeed of any
Thesee was the first monograph Calame dedicated to a body of narra narrative with "collective importance," the nebulous phrase so often
tives on a single subject, the figure of Theseus and his adventures. The associated with defining the nature of "myth" in the Greek tradition as
thematic approach was productive and appealing; he has also written a well as others.6 Thus when Calame speaks of "discourse production,"
study on the figure of Eros, first published in Italy in 1992 and entitled I he uses the term to describe the complex process by which narratives
Greci e /'eros. Simboli, pratiche, luoghi. A French translation appeared are produced, performed, and experienced, a process that always in
in 1996, and an English one in 1999.3 The Poetics of Eros seeks to volves communication between author, speaker, actor (if appropriate)
create, in essence, an anthropology of the concept of Eros, or love, in on one side and hearer/audience on the other, and inevitably produces
the ancient Greek world through close examination of how the narra change in the environment in which it acts.
tive tradition treats it. The book, while significantly less methodological Before examining some of the specifics of Calame's approach, we
than many of Calame's other works, clearly shows how flexible the should dwell a moment on the term "myth." The term itself, of course,
semionarrative approach can be when coupled with an anthropological presents grave difficulties of interpretation. There is no need to reiterate
perspective: the narratives considered need not be concerned with the in any detail here what is treated in the first chapter of this book. But to
same protagonists, the same setting, or have the same location of com discuss Calame's semionarrative approach is also to be forced to con
position. The common thread of Eros remains throughout, but the spe sider its implications for the august concept of "myth" itself. Calame
cific points of reference to the various (and varying) conceptions of love, began questioning the usefulness of the term long ago. He edited a valu
as they are portrayed over time and space, constantly change. The the able collection of essays in 1988 entitled Metamorphoses du mythe en
ory creates a space for comparison (a term, in fact, Calame himself uses Grece antique (Geneva) in which the changing faces of Greek "myths"
quite frequently in reference to the "comparative" methods he employs) are examined from a variety of perspectives. A culmination of his ideas
that is, in certain ways, a point of objecti\·ity from which to observe and can already be seen in his 1991 article entitled "'Mythe' et 'rite' en
compare multiple narrative entities. Grece. Des categories indigenes?"7 in which he questions and problema
"Theory," in the case of Calame's work, is, as it should be, a means, tizes the terms "myth" and "rite/ritual" from an anthropological per
not an end. Calame's semionarrative theory, based on the fundamental spective. Calame maintains that Hellenists should not employ the con
works of Greimas,4 is not intended to be obfuscatory or rebarbative. As cept of "myth" as it has come to be used, because the concept implies
the author himself states in his preface to this volume, it is formulated several characteristics that are inapplicable to the Greek narrative tradi-
xiv INTRODUCTION TO THE ENGLISH EDITION INTRODUCTION TO THE ENGLISH EDITION xv
tion. First, "myth," and use of the term "mythology" to describe the (also termed "actoriaVactantial figures"), setting, time. Thus this first
science of studying "myths," presupposes the possibility of categorizing structure involves the processes of actorialization, spatialization, and
and organizing narratives that have been removed from the time and temporalization. For discursive structures to be effective (in a social and
place of their composition and performance. This, within the frame cultural sense) they must be anchored to the natural and social world in
work of Calame's approach, is impossible. Second, and related, the term certain ways; in other words, they must have social, cultural, and/or
as it has been used since Heyne8 inherently defines particular narratives physical reference. In the case of the Greek material under discussion
in contradistinction to and comparison with a canonical, or "original," here, there are certain ways we can further specify this referencing. Tra
version. While this presents critics with a useful tool for the comparison ditional narratives in Greece almost always have actors that are either
of departing versions that treat similar characters, locations, or themes, super- or infrahuman (rarely subhuman, with the notable exception of
it impedes the same critics' ability to understand the relevance of a par the fables of Aesop), and they almost always take place in a recogniz
ticular narrative for those for whom it was intended and by whom it able geographical space. For Calame, an understanding of the nature of
was composed. When Calame states that "there is simply no ontology these references to the natural and cultural world allows comparisons
of myth,"9 he is calling into question the value of classifying a body of between narratives that may otherwise be quite distinct in scale or even
narratives, extremely heterogeneous in composition, subject matter, and subject matter. We can also note here that the way a narrative maintains
goals, under a single heading, or as a single entity. Classicists and cul these references with its cultural and natural environment has provided
tural anthropologists (Calame, of course, is both) interested in the world critics with an almost standard set of criteria for the categorization of
of ancient Greece must beware of foisting a modern taxonomy on a narratives as "myth," "legend," or "folktale."13 We mentioned above
complex system that is quite distant in time from their own. Thus, in that these categories present a flawed taxonomy. This can be attributed
the first section of the present volume, Calame discusses the unsuit at least in part to the fact that the terms are based on an incomplete
ability of the terms "myth," "legend," and "folktale" to the Greek understanding of the discursive process and, related to this, of the rela
material in question, terms that have formed a triad canonized most tionships narratives maintain with the world at large. The second and
famously by James Frazer.10 Modern taxonomies fall away upon close third levels serve to fill out this understanding.
comparison with both ancient and even contemporary comparative ma The second level of structures Calame terms "semionarrative surface
terial, such as narratives of the tribes of Papua New Guinea or the structures." On this level, narratives with actors, in space and time
Himalayas. (functions of the discursive structures) reorganize figures and values of
The denial of the ontology of "myth" is a direct result of the semi the natural world. This is achieved through the organization and reor
onarrative approach Calame employs here and elsewhere. The method ganization of the actorial figures in relation to each other and in space
itself is both innovative and grounded in long-standing approaches to and time. Calame employs semiotic terminology (Sender, Subject, Anti
narrative and traditional mythic discourse. Calame is most indebted to subject, Receiver) in order to arrange actorial figures according to their
the semiotic methodology developed by Greimas, which itself has roots changing roles ("actantial positions") within a narrative. These organi
in the classic structuralism of Levi-Strauss. 11 His readings are based on zations and reorganizations take place according to a "syntactic plan"
the identification of three levels of "semionarrative structures" within a of discourse called the "narrative schema." This schema defines the
particular discourse. These structures together contribute to the afore stages necessary for a narrative to exist at all: a phase of manipulation
mentioned process of discourse production. It will be useful here to (that is, an initial action, often of a Sender, that sets the narrative in
discuss briefly the three levels, with the particular goal of introducing motion, often creating or created by a situation of lack), a phase of
the reader to what can at times seem a formidable amount of technical competence (valorization of the actantial Subject that leads to his/her/
language. In this discussion and throughout the translation much care their ability to perform the necessary task presented by the phase of
has been taken to use terminology consistent both internally and with manipulation), performance (the action itself, performed by an actantial
other translations of Calame's work in English, especially the 1995 Subject with the necessary competence), and sanction (the result of the
Craft. In addition, the bilingual (French and English) semiotic dictio performance, often a return to a narrative equilibrium parallel to that
nary of Greimas and Courtes has been used when applicable.12 previous to the Sender's manipulation). Of course, every narrative does
The first level consists of what Calame calls "discursive structures." not exhibit these phases in the same way; one of the central activities of
These are the practical elements of narrative production: characters the semionarrative method as employed here is the recognition of the
XVI INTRODUCTION TO THE ENGLISH EDITION INTRODUCTION TO THE ENGLISH EDITION xvii
variations possible in the schema and how they can exert a practical, or on its own terms, without the hindrance of the need for strict rationality
"pragmatic," effect on the society for which they are produced. This or logical consistency in the modern sense. 14 This is the aim of classic
effect can be identified as a reorganization of the values, psychologies, structuralism, as well, but it is achieved by that method at the expense
or ecology of a given social system, or the organization or disruption of of the social and ideological context of specific narratives. Calame's
cultural taxonomies within the community. semionarrative approach has the advantage of recovering this context
The semionarrative approach is perhaps most dynamic in this second while retaining the undeniable force of the structuralist's oppositions.
level of semionarrative surface structures. It is here that the close con This theoretical model is brought to bear in the present study on the
nection between narrative and its context, so important for this ap narratives treating the foundation of Cyrene, the famous colony on the
proach, is decisively forged. Calame is at his best when he is identifying north shore of Africa. Cyrene's narrative tradition is extremely rich, and
relationships between narratives based on the narrative schema, and un leads Calame from Pindar, who describes aspects of the founding of the
covering ways that individual narratives subtly but consistently alter city in three odes, through Herodotus, to the Alexandrian poets Cal
values and perceptions among their listeners. In observing this process, limachus and Apollonius. The journey makes a single observation abun
he recognizes that narratives often make use of isotopies, which are dantly clear. The distinction between two modern poles - what we would
defined as repeating semantic or figural elements that recur both within term "myth" and "history" -is extremely difficult to define for the
specific narratives and across narratives treating the same theme or sub Greek material. When Pindar speaks in Pythian 4 of Euphemus, the
ject. These isotopies (such as "matrimonial union" or "cultivation," to Argonaut and ancestor of the future founder of Cyrene, or Herodotus
choose two that are prominent in this book) serve to organize a com theorizes on the meaning of the stammerer Battus' name, the interaction
plex narrative according to a semantic plan larger than what can be of the discourse on the several semionarrative levels Calame identifies
achieved simply by the processes of actorialization, spatialization, and shows that both texts are engaged in the same process. They moderate
temporalization. They can organize (either paratactically or hypotac and modify the traditional material they interact with for specific pur
tically) whole narratives out of series of narrative schemata, often in poses - the very reorganization Calame insists upon. The bulk of this
quite complex ways. Isotopies thus both reflect and aid in the reorgani book consists of analyses of these reorganizations: how they operate,
zation of the culture in which the discourse takes place. · upon what they act, and why they do so. These discussions should be
An integral final level is that of "deep semionarrative structures," in left in the capable hands of the author. It remains only to say that
which two or three often contradictory terms are asserted simul throughout the fascinating guided tour, the conclusion becomes easy to
taneously. The "themes" identified on this level form the basis of the anticipate. For the Greeks, there is no "history" as distinct from the
isotopies discussed above. Figures and concepts from the natural world, narrative (and, until a relatively late date, poetic) tradition, and no
expressed most clearly on the level of discursive structures, and mod "myth" that is not implicated in the process of discourse production.
ified and reorganized on the level of semionarrative surface structures, "Myth" and "history," as defined in their modern senses, cannot be
are determined here. At the very foundational level of discourse, we find separated.
contradiction. Students of myth and myth theory will note that in this This book should have a wide appeal. This English edition perhaps
level there is acknowledgment of the presence of binary oppositions, a has as its primary audience American undergraduates and graduate stu
central tenet of structuralist approaches to myth and literature. Cal dents who will find it easier to access Calame's ideas in translation than
ame's method is in most ways quite distinct from classic structuralism, in the original French. But the book has been updated in the course of
especially in its insistence on the relevance of social and cultural context the translation, making it useful also, one hopes, to the professional. In
for the understanding of a given discourse. While the recognition that at the notes and bibliography, reference to books and articles that have
this final level there is often the assertion of contradictory terms should been translated into English has been made where possible. Still, the
not be perceived as a concession to structuralist readings on the whole, citations make clear Calame's academic genealogy, and a limited effort
it is indeed an acknowledgment that there is some validity in this aspect has been made to "Americanize" the bibliography further. Thus this
of the method. Calame is not "antistructuralist" per se but "poststruc book will serve another purpose, perhaps, in introducing those unfamil
turalist" in the truest sense of the term. The recognition that at the iar with recent European scholarship on ancient Greek myth and litera
foundation of the isotopies organizing the narrative discourse there ex ture to progress being made on the Continent.
ists contradiction creates the possibility of interpreting mythic discourse
MYTH AND HISTORY IN ANCIENT GREECE
I _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __
Illusions of Mythology
Is it appropriate once again to question that privileged object of the
study of cultural anthropology that has evolved through the course of
more than a century as "myth"? Is it prudent to apply this concept and
category to ancient Greece? Do we not situate the ancients' thought
itself precisely at the origin of our predicament when faced with this
ambiguous category? Greece offers to us its garden of myths, in all its
fertility; but it seems as if the Greeks, through the criticism they exer
cised on narratives within their own tradition, originated the very cate
gory that defines for us the stories we are accustomed to call "myths."
Herein lies the paradox: we attribute to the Greeks the origin of a criti
cal concept of which they themselves would supply, in return, the most
brilliant and exemplary specimens.
Indeed, on closer examination, the Greeks never elaborated a singular
concept or definition of the mythic, nor recognized a group within the
abundance of their own narratives as fitting in an exact manner within
the confines of such a category.1 If they had developed such a distinc
tion, Aristotle, that master of nomenclature, would not have failed to
acknowledge it; however, in reading his Poetics, we see that the term
muthos is limited to the technical meaning of the plot of a story, partic
ularly of a tragedy. Thus a Greek term is used in modern times to desig
nate a different set of meanings from those that the term covered in its
native sense. If "the existence of myths" is supposed to be "attested in
all societies studied, or even simply approached, by ethnologists,"2 and
if a myth found in a particular culture is now placed within a universal
category, it is because this type of narrative has been situated at a dis
tance essential to the claim of objectivity that modern anthropology has
instituted between "primitive" societies and our own. Fabula, then
myth, "that particular type of story that takes as its subject the history
of the gods of ancient Greece" represents the point of differentiation
that is supposed to delineate Western society, in constant progress, from
traditional societies. Myth, then, achieves the status of a mode of hu
man thought, itself significant of the "otherness" of cultures not yet
having reached the privileged stage of development that their occidental
observers inevitably have achieved. For myth to return to a critical soci
ology dedicated to the culture of the "same," we must wait for Barthes.